for a total of $656.31 after tax and shippingI play a lot of sports games and such, nothing too too intense, plus I am looking for a system i can upgrade at a later time whether its to a quad core or a better video card(s) or both

The other question i had was, on newegg where i will buy these, when it says OEM, what accesories do i need to buy as well?(heatsinks, sata cables etc.)

no, open box means that the product was a 'return' and they are reselling it.

check the site's open-box policy, typically the refund period is shortened, warranty may be shortened, and all the retail parts may not be included, it could also be blemished or missing packaging... it really varies... there are people that have perfect 'like-new' open-box items but it's risky, that's why it's so cheap

Whats your budget? Investing money for an e6600 and then get a 6800 is pretty worthless. I would either get a cheaper cpu or spend more on a comparable graphics card. The 6 series is now like 3 years old. Look at a 7900gs if you want a good, decent, but cheap nvidia card. Look into ATI's card's since their x1900's are pretty powerful for their cheap price. Otherwise, the best bang for the buck card is a 8800gts 320 card; you can find them for about 250ish after rebate.

I'd also look at getting a better PSU. If your planning on investing and upgrading in the future, get a good PSU such as antec, thermaltake, coolermaster... efficiency is more important than the wattage number and I don't see them mention it on the epower POS.

Btw, ASUS sucks. They make good motherboards, but... they have tons of problems with them of what simple people can't deal with and their tech support is pretty bad. I built one with that same p5n-E sli and another Pentium D system with a different ASUS board. Both systems were picky as hell with Ram. Make sure the ram you get is compatible, since most 1.9v modules tend to make the board not boot up at all. Using cheap 1.8v ram seems to be compatible with them of what I find. If you're not a tech-savvy person, I'd just avoid ASUS all together.

If you really want to use a SATA dvd burner because it saves you of using an IDE cable, just to note, there's no real difference between SATA and the old IDE dvd burners. That'll save you another 20 bucks or so.

Btw, my latest machine only costed 900 bucks. Its an e6600, 2GB 667 ram, 320GB HDD, DVD burner, 8800 GTS 640MB, Intel mobo, ultra case, ultra 500watt psu. If you shop around, you can get what I have for the same price.

I got the case and psu free after rebate and I've had a few ultra PSU's in the past and they are quite good (and still work), even though they aren't antec. For being free, it powers my 8800GTS very well. I don't overclock so I really don't need extra power. Mind you, Ultra is a better brand then epower or any of those generic brand POS'. They work and I've never had one problem with them.

RAID 0 - increased cpu activity, chances of failure double, transfer data is increased, but not access time, and the added risk of data loss, double the heat, double the power, needs a driver to be recognized, etc...

i know because i ran RAID 0 and a raptor side by side for >6 months, then i didn't see the value in RAID 0 over the raptor, i figure i could lower my power consumption, lower the ambient temp in my case, and had just as good, if not better load times in BF2 do to reduced access time with the raptor... so i sold both 160gb's and got a 320gb drive for storage

it's not a COMPLETE waste of money, but if you have the money it's well worth it imho.

and 10k drives are not less reliable, i've had mine for 2 years no issues and it has 5-year warranty same as all seagates

If you're concerned about a 6800 not being fast enough, I can say with a fair amount of confidence that it'll do for now.

I just made a system with an e6400 and 2g of 667, but kept my "old" X800pro. IIRC X800pro's aren't too much slower/faster than 6800's, and I can play BF2 and Oblivion at 1200x768 on "high" plus max AA without any frame-rate issues.

the 6800 is still a very capable card, but with better choices out there for the same or similar price, its cost to benefit ratio is much smaller. There's a huge performance increase from the 6 series to a 7 series such as the 7900gt or even an over clocked gs (which performs almost on par with a 7900gt). Even then ati's x1950's are better then the 7900gt's for an average price of 150ish. You could probably find them cheaper.